# Pusher Channels vs Upstash QStash (slim)

> Upstash QStash scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Pusher Channels's 51.9 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do events webhooks send. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pusher-channels-vs-upstash-qstash.md (~2,150 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pusher-channels-vs-upstash-qstash.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pusher-channels-vs-upstash-qstash
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Upstash QStash scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Pusher Channels's 51.9 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do events webhooks send.

- Pusher Channels: D 51.9, rank #663 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pusher-channels.min.md
- Upstash QStash: BB 72.3, rank #105 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/upstash-qstash.min.md
- Pusher Channels, good for Pushing live updates from a server to browsers and mobile apps, with presence and server-signed private channels.
- Upstash QStash, good for Agents and serverless apps that need a delayed, retried or scheduled HTTP call without running a queue. Ahead on Reliability, 83 against 63; Schema & documentation, 78 against 35; Agent ergonomics, 83 against 45; Security & auth, 61 against 52; Payments & pricing, 40 against 30. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | Pusher Channels | Upstash QStash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 63 | 83 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 35 | 78 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 45 | 83 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 52 | 61 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 76 | 77 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 78 | 81 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Pusher Channels | Upstash QStash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Pusher Ltd (a Bird company) | Upstash |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api-<cluster>.pusher.com` | `https://qstash.upstash.io/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Bird's general terms and product specific terms. The client and server libraries on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary hosted service under Upstash's terms of service. The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the MCP server are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 10 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.upstash/mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-11-21 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-31 |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 2.2k stars, 1.4M npm/wk, 638k PyPI/wk | 269 stars, 816k npm/wk, 91k PyPI/wk |